Pakistan News

The Vancouver Canucks were 10 goals better in their second pre-season game than they were in their first, but were still one goal worse than the Edmonton Oilers , who won 2-1 Wednesday at home on Connor McDavid’s overtime breakaway. The Canucks’ 10-0 loss Sunday in Calgary may have been easy to dismiss but it was impossible to ignore. Those lineups were a mismatch, as Vancouver travelled with as few as three or four players who could start the National Hockey League season. Coach Rick Tocchet took more of an NHL lineup to Edmonton and got more of an NHL scoreline, with the Oilers dominating early but the Canucks probably slightly outplaying the home team over the final 40 minutes. What was important in the wake of Sunday’s embarrassment was that the team looked organized, competitive and assertive. They don’t need pre-season wins, although Tocchet won’t turn them down. But they need pre-season improvement, so Wednesday was a good step forward. The best Canuck may have been goalie C...

An Indian great-grandmother aged 92 has learned to read and write after going to school for the first time and inspiring others to join her, media and officials said on Wednesday. Salima Khan, born in around 1931 and who was married at the age of 14 — two years before the end of British colonial rule in India — had a lifelong dream of being able to read and write. Khan, from Bulandshahr in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, said there were no schools in her village when she was a girl. Six months ago, she began studying alongside pupils eight decades younger than her, and she is accompanied on her way to class by her grandson’s wife. Her story emerged after a video of her counting from one to 100 went viral on social media. “My grandchildren used to trick me into giving them extra money as I couldn’t count currency notes,” she was quoted as saying by the Times of India . “Those days are gone.” India’s literacy rate is around 73 per cent, according to the 2011 census. “Her ...

The Special Judge Central — FIA’s special court — in Islamabad issued perpetual arrest warrants on Wednesday for PTI leader Azam Khan Swati over his controversial posts on social media platform X (then known as Twitter) about senior military officers including the then-army chief in October last year. Swati was arrested twice last year — in October and in the following month — after the FIA booked him in Islamabad for posts that were allegedly against state institutions. His arrest on November 27, 2022, and subsequent detention stretched for over a month. He was released from an Islamabad sub-jail in January this year after he secured post-arrest bail from the Islamabad High Court. In his petition for bail, he had denied making the offending posts. There were three previous hearings of this case, in April, May and June, all of which Swati skipped. In the May hearing, non-bailable arrest warrants were issued against him, and in the June hearing, he was declared a proclaimed ...

HANGZHOU: Teen sensation Pan Zhanle swam a freestyle leg at world record pace to drive China to the men’s 4x100 metres medley relay gold at the Asian Games on Tuesday after the hosts claimed the first title at eSports’ official debut in the multi-sport event. Two nights after becoming the first Asian swimmer to break the 47 seconds barrier in the 100 metres freestyle, 19-year-old Pan clocked an incredible 46.65 as China threatened the United States’ world record. Pan’s time was 0.21 seconds faster than the 100m world record held by another 19-year-old wunderkind, Romanian David Popovici. With world champion Qin Haiyang swimming the breaststroke leg in 57.63 seconds — faster than the Asian record — China won in three minutes 27.01 seconds, just outside the US world record of 3:26.78 from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. “We thought we would have to wait until next year to come close to the world record, so tonight we put in a really good performance,” said Qin, who owns the 50, 100 and 2...

Pakistan has a staggering 22.8 million out-of-school children — a statistic that has significantly shaped the country’s education reform agenda over the past decade. However, most people remain unaware of another sobering fact — nearly four out of five children under the age of 10 in Pakistan struggle to read simple text. This means that even children who do attend primary school regularly are not acquiring the reading skills expected for their age. Despite the challenges posed by Covid-19 and the 2022 floods , Pakistan’s enrolment indicators reflect commendable progress. Although the aspiration of achieving universal school enrolment remains a distant dream, evidence from the provinces, especially Punjab, reveals a significant increase in enrolment rates. Between 1998 and 2020, Punjab succeeded in admitting 13 million children to schools, leading to a 19 per cent surge in the proportion of enrolled children in household surveys. Notably, this progress has been most pronounced amo...

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has filed an application in the Supreme Court to withdraw its review petition against the court’s verdict on the 2017 sit-in by the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) at Faizabad in Islamabad. Authored by Justice Qazi Faez Isa years before he took oath as the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP), the searing judgement had instructed the defence ministry and the tri-services chiefs to penalise personnel under their command who were found to have violated their oath. It had also directed the federal government to monitor those advocating hate, extremism and terrorism and prosecute them in accordance with the law. Adverse observations were also made against several government departments for causing inconvenience to the public as the 20-day sit-in paralysed life in both Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Pleas were subsequently moved against the verdict by the Ministry of Defence, IB, PTI, Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and the Pakistan Electronic Media...

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The doping case involving teenage Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva that marred the 2022 Beijing Olympics returned to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Tuesday. The highest court in sports began a closed-door hearing set to last at least three days. Valieva, who was 15 at the Olympics and is now 17, was expected to testify by video link from Russia in a case that was slow-walked in her home country and could now deliver a verdict by the end of the year. Awaiting the outcome are nine American skaters who could become Olympic champions in the team event after finishing second in Beijing behind Valieva and the Russians. Valieva’s defense has been that her positive test for a banned heart medication was caused by accidental contamination — maybe from a glass or plate — by tablets her grandfather claimed he took. The first Russian anti-doping tribunal to judge the case during the Olympics in February 2022 said Valieva and her legal team “intend to con...